Thoughts and happenings from a life on Malta

Almost within the shadow of Mosta’s massive dome lies a smaller place of worship –  Knisja Ta’ l-Isperanza (Our Lady of Good Hope church), which comes with its own legend involving a Maltese maiden, marauding Turkish corsairs, a cave, cobwebs and divine intervention (for the full story, I recommend A Hundred Wayside Chapels by Kilin – ISBN 99909-93-06-8). Located on one slope of Wied il-Ghasel (Valley of Honey – that’s as tempting a location as any) and standing sentry to the stone bridge which spans it, this was the meeting point for our small group of trekkers.  The leader was Stanley Borg of Trekking Malta.

Thanks to Stanley Borg for these photos

The circular route was mostly along quiet country roads or tracks and is quite manageable for walkers of any ability; the most challenging part being the hill rising up from Fiddien Valley to Dwejra, although it always seems so much harder when I’m doing it with my bicycle. The 10.5km circuit can be done comfortably in 2¼ hours.

Route taken

Should you like to download the route to your GPS, contact me for the relevant GPX file.

Our route

Reading my friend Sue’s facebook entry on the morning of 17 January – “… and to the Headland of Horror we go …”, one could easily imagine this to be some Halloween adventure, albeit a couple of months overdue, rather than the translation of a Maltese place name, the area around which we were to be trekking later on that day. Fortunately, the weather gave us a benign look after the foulness of previous days.

The main part of the route had us sandwiched between the soft belly of a tranquil sea and the majestic rise of a stern rock face wrinkled with fissures. One of these cracks almost turned trek into tragedy when a sizable chunk of rock decided to take a tumble into the ocean just minutes before we were due to pass that way. The smell of damp was oozing out of the freshly exposed stone while the sea turned a milky white, almost as if in shock at the accident that nearly happened. Solid as a rock – must think twice before using that expression again.

In spite of the area’s inaccessibilty and remoteness, the work of the human hand is ever present. Boathouses huddle amongst the boulders, and where space allows, expand into multi-roomed complexes with deckchair platforms and barbeque areas. Even the coves which haven’t been assaulted by bricks and concrete are still stained by man’s fingerprints, mainly in the shape of all things plastic. A very sorry sight indeed.

We ascended the camouflaged stairway leading up to the plateau just as dusk was descending, in time for the final photo sessions. I was most pleased to see that both Zhanna and Soo Yon (two of my Cambridge exam students) survived their baptism of fire in Maltese wilderness trekking!